The Gators scored in every quarter — even the first — and hammered Kentucky 48-14 at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. Yes, it’s Kentucky. The Wildcats will probably finish in the bottom half of the SEC East (although Georgia seems hell bent on cementing sixth place), but Florida needed to unleash the offense no matter who it played.

Trey Burton set a UF record with six touchdowns (Gainesville Sun).

“We got tired of hearing all the junk, man,” center Mike Pouncey said. “We just wanted to come out and prove everybody wrong, they had us on upset alert. We wanted to just keep everybody from all the negative stuff, talk about all the positives we got in our program.”

Before moving on to the Crimson Tide, here are five fast thoughts on Florida’s win over Kentucky:

Trey Burton's not Tim Tebow and nobody at UF is asking him to be. (Gainesville Sun)

1. Trey Burton took a permanent step forward. After his touchdowns against Miami (Ohio) and Tennessee, Burton came within a half-second of picking up a celebration penalty. This week, he hit the end zone a team-record six times and acted like it was normal. “I got told to calm down a little bit,” he said. “I tend to get a little excited.” Burton caught five passes for 37 yards and a touchdown and rushed five times for 40 yards and five touchdowns (that’s 7.7 yards per rush/catch). He hit TE Omarius Hines for a 42-yard pass. Great moves. He added another one after the game. Asked if the offense needed a performance like this to give it confidence heading into the Alabama game, Burton looked me straight in the eye and said, “We know what we can do. I don’t think we really needed this. I know a lot of you guys think that we’re struggling, but I don’t think scoring 30-something points is that bad. We’re taking the right step forward and we’re improving every week.” We knew he had talent. Now we know he’s got poise. He does not play like a freshman and he does not talk like a freshman. He’s too polite to say he doesn’t give a (blank), but he doesn’t give a (blank) about people comparing him to Tim Tebow. He’ll never be Tebow and I don’t think the Gators want him to be. Burton is unprecedented.

2. WR Andre Debose was great in the first quarter, then disappeared. Like the rest of the offense, Debose was good for the first 15 minutes, then did very little the next quarter. Unlike the rest of the offense, Debose did not do anything in the second half. A lot of Gator fans were ready to stop calling him a bust (he’s a red-shirt freshman, so that was far premature in the first place) after he broke out with four catches for 36 yards in the first quarter. Then nothing after that. Every time the media asks Florida coach Urban Meyer if Debose practices hard, he firmly answers yes. He always says it’s an injury or not learning the playbook that keeps Debose out of the line-up. Then, after Debose has the best game of his career, Meyer drops this little beauty, “Debose will be nonexistent next week if he does not practice well.” What? How often do you hear a coach say that about a player he thinks gives consistent effort?

3. The starting secondary is awesome. After that, big questions.

Trey Burton does not play in the secondary -- yet. (Gainesville Sun)

Janoris Jenkins? First-round pick. Ahmad Black? Future pro. Will Hill? Same, provided he stays out of trouble. Jeremy Brown? Appears to be in the early stages of an inspiring comeback. Beyond those four, Florida has issues and they showed against a tall, talented group of Kentucky receivers. Freshman Cody Riggs had major issues and the Wildcats attacked him constantly. Kentucky’s Chris Matthews (6-5) had six catches for 114 yards and two touchdowns. Without watching film it’s hard to have the exact number, but Riggs (5-9) was the victim on one touchdown and at least one other big catch. Alabama’s got a handful of 6-4 receivers. So does South Carolina. LSU has a 6-3 and 6-5. Jenkins (5-11) and Brown (5-10) will have enough trouble with those targets, but the second-string would appear to have no chance unless it improves dramatically.

4. Florida solidified a first-string linebacker trio — SLB A.J. Jones, MLB Jon Bostic, WLB Jelani Jenkins — and it is working. Jones had his job from Day 1. That left Bostic, Jenkins and Brandon Hicks to fight for the other two, and it’s obvious Hicks lost out. There are a lot of gaudy defensive statistics flying around the Gators right now and rightfully so, but here’s one that might go unnoticed: for the second straight week, a linebacker led the team in tackles. Bostic led at Tennessee, Jenkins (8) led against Kentucky. The team leader the first two weeks was Black. Black’s a smart defensive player, smart enough to tell you he should not be leading the team in tackles at safety. Ideally, Black would seldom need to make a tackle. The linebacker corps, anchored by Bostic, is lightening his load. When Bostic was a highly touted recruit at Palm Beach Central, so many people watched his games and walked away unimpressed. Now that he’s at Florida, he’s showing how good he can be. He’s started four games and already has three interceptions.

Even with Trey Burton's emergence, John Brantley has to be more productive than he's been. (Gainesville Sun)

5. QB John Brantley still did not play well enough. Brantley played his best game yet, but the Gators will need more from him against top-level competition. He was 24 of 35 for 248 yards, a touchdown and an interception. That needs to become the new minimum for Brantley. “Each game, we’re getting better and better,” Brantley said. “Each week during preparation is getting better and better. We had a great week of preparation, the coaches challenged a lot of us and we stepped up, so that’s what we’re going to do just build off what we did tonight and keep getting better and better.” How many times can you say “better and better”? Well, Brantley needs to get better. One thing that seemed to interrupt his progress against Kentucky: Florida had receivers all over the field and Brantley was clicking through two scoring drives, then suddenly the Gators reverted to their old Jeff-Demps-up-the-middle, Demps-left, dumpoff-to-Demps offense.